Tall, Dark, and Handsome
by Manchester
Summary: Xander had to pout for a good ten minutes before Harmony would call him the latter in his gorilla costume. No. 2 of Harmony's Halloween Choices.


"Well, gosh," said the Mayor, as his demon army broke and ran.

Looking down at the square from the roof of the City Hall, Richard Wilkins the Third was distracted from this, as he mused that perhaps he'd chosen the wrong style of deportment in his century of demonic life. Just about any other Evil Overlord would now be raging, screaming curses, and most likely using his mental/mystical powers on the nearest minion to haul that unfortunate follower up in the air and using invisible hands to crush the life out of his underling, all while cackling maniacally.

On the other hand, it had always seemed to him rather impolite to go "BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH!" while shaking hands, kissing babies, and feeding the occasional PTA meeting to a shambling horror from beyond the stars.

The Mayor sighed, as the last of the rabble headed out of sight. He really couldn't blame them. He would later hunt them down and pull out their toenails through their ears, but the members of his defeated forces did have a point regarding their panicked flight. Even for cannon fodder, there were noble deaths and ignoble deaths. Flat-out ludicrous deaths were an entirely different matter, as demonstrated several moments ago by the demise of their leaders, possibly the two most vicious vampires in existence.

Richard Wilkins eyed his foe across the square as that enemy regained his feet.

"Work, work, work," the Mayor muttered, as his hands made mystical gestures to gather up power ripped directly from the Hellmouth.

"Let's see, now. Maintain your grip, swing your hips, and continue the follow-through." It was a little strange how well his golf lessons had helped him in controlling incredible supernatural forces, but then, hooking or slicing was common in both hitting a little white ball and throwing around spheres of pure fire that could melt through yard-thick stone walls, so you took assistance in improving your abilities where you could find it.

The Mayor concentrated, as a ball of pure blue-white fury ten feet across manifested itself just above his arms now pointing straight up. Narrowing his eyes, Richard Wilkins looked directly at his opponent coming right at the building, every step of that being making the whole structure shake, and tightened his lips.

The sphere holding the most devastating forces of the Boca del Infierno blurred away from the demon standing on the City Hall roof, to flash the distance from the Mayor to his adversary's chest in an instant, and exploded in a massive fireball.

Hellmouth forces strove against a being imbued not just with Chaos energy sent forth by a mage who had gone a little overboard, but also filled with the very belief of literally billions of viewers who had left the movie theatres worldwide for more than sixty years convinced that only biplanes and blondes could bring down Kong of Skull Island.

A sixty-foot gorilla stood in the middle of the City Hall square, totally unharmed except for some scorched fur, and bellowed a roar of rage that shook windows throughout the entire town of Sunnydale.

The populace had been through things like….well, perhaps not exactly like this, but their Sunnydale Syndrome kicked in fast enough so that everyone in bed at that instant, whether awake or asleep, ignored anything at all they had heard. Instead, they promptly pulled over their heads their bedsheets, pillows, and sleeping partners, and grimly disregarded whatever was happening outside.

Kong glared at the tiny two-legs that had thrown the bright hurting thing. His primitive instincts had brought him to the highest point in this place, and now that he was close to that bad thing that had struck at him, he could FEEL its wrongness. Even the scaly big-jaws he had fought on his island home were closer kin to him than this. It was….other, not-right. Deep in his chest, a truly ferocious rumble began.

Richard Wilkins spun and headed for the roof door at a dead run. This was no time for a "yikes!" or even a "good golly gol-darn!" On his way, the Mayor allowed perhaps, for once, a "fucking hell, time to haul ass!" fitted the bill. The wards on the building might hold off that animal long enough for him to reach his office, where there were otherworldly weapons capable of putting down even bigger and meaner things than what was now just a few steps away.

A gorilla as tall as a six-story building can cover a lot of ground in a few steps. Just as the Mayor got to the door and reached out to push it open, a hairy body stopped right at the side of the building, and a hand wider than that man was tall was thrust forward. It passed through a flash of light with no effect except for a howl of rage from Kong, as he grabbed with tingling fingers the little thing that had almost escaped.

Fruitlessly struggling in the gorilla's grip, the Mayor frantically went through his mind any way to get out of this. Unfortunately, he really couldn't think of any. His horror only increased as the hand that was holding him twisted so that he now faced the monster to look it right in the eye. An eye that told him exactly what was going to happen, as the ape's mouth opened to show fangs longer than a man's leg.

In all his more-than-a-century existence, while creating spells to protect himself from harm and to make himself immortal, Richard Wilkins the Third had never gotten around to casting a specific enchantment to prevent the animal known scientifically as Megaprimatus kong, species Gigantopithecus, from biting off the upper one-third of that demon's body.

Deep inside the mind of Kong, another personality belonging to a much more evolved primate tried not to be sick. He was helped, if it could be called that, by a deeper personality who was now joyously baying at the death of a threat to that animal's pack and mate.

"ALEXANDER LAVELLE HARRIS!"

His cheeks still bulging, Kong looked down in surprise.

By his right foot, glaring up at him, a nearly six-foot blonde in a thirties-style white cocktail dress was tapping her right high-heeled shoe in simmering fury.

As anyone who had listened to Ann Darrow knew, she had, when she wished, one of the most piercing voices in filmdom. Right now, she wished.

"YOU SPIT THAT OUT RIGHT NOW! YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE IT'S BEEN!"

Eyebrows that were a yard wide crumpled and descended, as an look of overpowering sheepishness came over Kong's face. He turned his head, and expectorated loudly, with the result traveling almost the entire length of the building, to land in the street going past City Hall. A moment later, as Kong made a toss with his filled hand, the rest of what remained of the Mayor landed near the other part of his body, with both now undergoing the usual effects of demonic death in that all of the pieces began melting into unidentifiable goo.

Kong didn't pay any attention to this, as he was more occupied with sticking out his tongue and using his right hand to wipe away the taste.

When he finally finished a minute later, a loudly cleared throat brought back the gorilla's attention to the impatient young woman. Again looking down, a puzzled Kong watched as the good-smelling two-legs made gestures with her arms. Finally understanding what she wanted, the ape made a chuffing noise of amusement and bent down, to place the back of his left hand against the ground, palm up.

Harmony Kendall, with the encouragement of Ann Darrow, fearlessly hopped onto the giant gorilla's palm and held on as Kong carefully lifted her up to his right shoulder. She scrambled onto that part of the ape's body and sat down, holding onto patches of fur, though that wasn't really necessary, as his shoulder was wider than most sidewalks and there was more than enough room to sit in safety.

Kong's head turned for him to amiably regard his little friend. From deep in his mind, a voice irritably yelled, "She's my girlfriend, and you better not forget that, you big…..ape! Geez, I gotta come up with something better.…" Kong blandly ignored this, instead bemusedly sniffing at someone who somehow managed to smell like island-friend and new-friend, both at the same time.

Harmony put up with this for a few moments, until a thought struck her. She looked with a smile into the biggest, brownest eyes she had ever seen, and giggled, while saying, "You know, back there, you overturned a Hostess truck -- and I think you knew what you were doing then! Well, maybe it's got in it the new style of Twinkies. I mean, the….banana crème-filled ones."

At that, Kong's face brightened, as if the sun itself was shining through his features, and he turned around, pausing a moment with his back to the City Hall, as he pounded his fists against his chest. As the thoom! thoom! thoom! boomed throughout the entire town, Kong, once again victor of all he surveyed, uttered the loudest possible roar of joy and Twinkie-craving.

In bedrooms throughout the town, the Sunnydale Syndrome again struck, as people burrowed deeper into their bedsheets, pillows, and sleeping partners. In a good many homes, a lot of fun was had by all.

A few minutes later, a head was cautiously stuck out from an alley. Rupert Giles soon emerged, watching in wonder what was heading down the street away from him. Shaking his head, the man turned around and walked out in the town square to a specific location.

In the middle of the square, where there was a currently-empty parking lot, there were now two craters in the pavement next to each other, about the size and shape of childrens' wading pools. Connecting both depressions was a vertical ridge running down the middle. At the bottoms of both indentations were two identical greasy smears.

Standing there, Giles contemplated the new additions to the square for a few moments, until a truly Ripperish grin suddenly appeared on his face. He turned to head towards a mailbox at one of the corners of the square, patting at his tweed suit on the way. Whatever jokes his Slayer and his other charges made about his clothing, they couldn't deny his outfit always had lots of pockets and he could carry just about anything in there.

This included a pen, a sheet of paper, an envelope, and several air-mail stamps, all of which were plucked out and used to dash off a quick note, that was then dropped into the mailbox. Humming to himself, Rupert Giles then briskly walked past the City Hall.

His hurried stride wasn't because of the usual danger of being on the streets of Sunnydale at night. Right now, the Englishman was supremely confident that the environs were the safest they had ever been, possibly for decades.

No, Giles' rush was due to the fact that he needed to find and confront Ethan Rayne, to get him to end the Chaos magic that had made all those who had brought costumes from that magician transform into their outfits. Including Xander Harris' gorilla costume.

Stepping up his pace, the Watcher knew it was urgent to accomplish this as fast as possible, before that boy actually managed to commit suicide by changing back into a normal human right after eating an entire truckload of Twinkies.

* * *

Despite the disappearance of Richard Wilkins the Third, mayor of Sunnydale, people of that town still stubbornly managed for a time not to notice anything that would interfere with their normal lives and work. So, maintenance crews didn't comment on having to fill up two craters in the city square, along with numerous footprints the size of Volkswagens along the streets, clean up several hundred empty Twinkie wrappers next to an overturned bakery truck, and carry the daily mail of the town.

One particular letter finally ended its journey all the way to London and a centuries-old building devoted to supporting the warrior women known as Slayers. Or so the inhabitants claimed. A few colonials in far-off California had quite different opinions. Anyway, the letter came to the desk of a mature Englishman, who, as he incredulously read it, gradually developed the purpling features and veins standing out on the temples that signify blood pressure reaching artery-rupturing levels.

_October Thirty-First, Halloween In Sunnydale_

_Quentin, old boy:_

_I feel that you and the Council would be exceedingly interested in hearing about the destruction tonight of the pair of vampires that made up two-thirds of the group known as the Scourge of Europe. Obviously, I am referring to Spike, formerly known as William the Bloody, and his companion, the mad vampire Drusilla, both now most assuredly to be spoken of in the past tense._

_This happy news is also accompanied with the discovery of an entirely new way to destroy those blood-drinking demons, though I fear a re-occurrence of that event is extremely unlikely to ever happen again._

_Still, having read this far, I am sure that you are quite agog, so without further ado:_

_Besides the usual means of decapitation, staking, crosses, holy water, and objects of magic, several minutes ago it was my great good fortune to have witnessed the elimination of two vampires by seeing them being crushed under a sixty-foot giant ape's immense buttocks._

_Best wishes,_

_Rupert Giles_


End file.
